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"Humans love mobs." I am a human and I don't love mobs. This article is all about incorrect assumptions. If I am not mistaken, the parent comment just made a

"Humans love mobs." I am a human and I don't love mobs. This article is all about incorrect assumptions. If I am not mistaken, the parent comment just made another one. The part about the media amplifying what is on social media I absolutely agree with. I have always thought there is some strange irony in news outlets writing about something that is, at least in the case of newspapers, killing their own business. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbus-statue-in-baltimore-torn-down-and-thrown-in-harbor/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbus-statue-in-baltimore-to...

Thorentis 6y ago
I made a generalization which I still think is true, regardless of specific exceptions which will always exist for all generalizations. Humans love to feel like they belong and they like to feel validated in their opinions. This doesn't always play out in the form of a mob. Even just "ganging up" on a friend in a group conversation is a result of these traits. Mob mentality shows itself in many ways. Perhaps I should've been clearer about mob mentality vs. the classic "mob". What we see happening on social media is I think a result of the majority of humans being susceptible to some form and some degree of mob mentality (groupthink, if you will).
dwaltrip 6y ago
Crazy model that just popped into my head: If we think of humans as variable tribalism waveform propagators, then a mob is simply an incidence of intense constructive interference. Perhaps you emit less tribalism energy than the average human, but it's still possible that in certain scenarios you, like any of us, would contribute to the constructive interference :) Edit: Hmmm... I think we can actually extend this model by describing social media as a transform on these tribalism emissions that tends to heavily normalize, distort and exaggerate the signal into one of a relatively small set of outputs, thus greatly increasing the odds of constructive interference.

Thorentis 6y ago

I made a generalization which I still think is true, regardless of specific exceptions which will always exist for all generalizations. Humans love to feel like they belong and they like to feel validated in their opinions. This doesn't always play out in the form of a mob. Even just "ganging up" on a friend in a group conversation is a result of these traits. Mob mentality shows itself in many ways. Perhaps I should've been clearer about mob mentality vs. the classic "mob". What we see happening on social media is I think a result of the majority of humans being susceptible to some form and some degree of mob mentality (groupthink, if you will).

dwaltrip 6y ago

Crazy model that just popped into my head: If we think of humans as variable tribalism waveform propagators, then a mob is simply an incidence of intense constructive interference. Perhaps you emit less tribalism energy than the average human, but it's still possible that in certain scenarios you, like any of us, would contribute to the constructive interference :) Edit: Hmmm... I think we can actually extend this model by describing social media as a transform on these tribalism emissions that tends to heavily normalize, distort and exaggerate the signal into one of a relatively small set of outputs, thus greatly increasing the odds of constructive interference.